Theft on Thursday by Ann Purser Page B

her.
    “Him! Oily little sod, with his ‘teeny bit louder’ and ‘lovely tone, Mrs. T-J,’ and his eyes undressing my Rebecca every time he looks in her direction! Don’t talk to me about darling Sandy!”
    Lois laughed as they turned into the car park in Cross Street. “So you like him! But you sing in the choir too, don’t you? Rebecca said …”
    “Got to keep an eye on the bugger, haven’t I,” growled Bill.
    “Well,” said Lois, opening the van door, “you could learn a lot about estate agents from this job. Come on …”
    “Lead on,” said Bill, and followed her out of the car park and into the street.
    G RAN SAT BY THE FIRE , HOPING L OIS WOULD BE HOME soon. She had claimed she was feeling a great deal better, and had insisted on getting up and coming down to make a cake. But when she stood in the kitchen with ingredients lined up on the table in front of her, her legs felt weak, and she had to sit down for a while. She abandoned cake-making, and sat and dozed in front of a television programme with the sound turned down. The moving, smiling figures were company. She felt a little scared. Never ill, she couldn’t remember when she had felt so bad. How could she have picked up a bug? Apart from that Sandy, there was no one else sick in the village. The shop was the clearing house for all such news, and old Mrs. Carr had not mentioned a bug going round.
    Indigestion, she told herself. Something I’ve always had, on and off. Just a bit worse, this time. Maybe get some new stuff from the chemist’s when she went in to Tresham.
    “Mum?” Lois was back, and Gran surfaced, making a big effort to smile as her daughter peered at her anxiously. “Shouldn’t you still be in bed?”
    “I’m fine,” said Gran. “Shall I make a cup of tea?”
    “You stay right there. I’m making tea for a day or two. An’ supper and breakfast. Here, I’ll turn the telly up. It’s your favourite rubbish.”
    Gran did not smile, and because she didn’t have a smart retort, Lois worried that her mother was far from well.

T WELVE

    J AMIE M EADE WALKED ALONG THE ROAD TOWARDS THE Hall, whistling. He’d arranged to pick up Annabelle to go for a walk around the fields. She was the best thing that had happened to him for a long time, he thought. Didn’t seem to mind that he had no wheels, no money and none of the lifestyle to which she must be accustomed.
    He’d first met her last summer, when the village fete had been up at the Hall as usual. Some daft newcomers had decided to have sideshows like in the old days. Or olde dayes. “Bowling for a pig,” one of them had proposed. With a sly grin, the local pig farmer—John Thornbull, married to cleaner Hazel—had said he’d donate a young pig if they’d come up and catch it. John’d got some of his friends round to watch the spectacle, and they’d watched for a satisfying hour as the newcomer and his son had slipped and slithered round the pen. Then they’d taken pity on them, and had it tethered in a couple of minutes. “Reckon they wished they’d never heard of the ‘oldedayes’ by the time we’d caught the bugger,” John had chuckled to Hazel over tea.
    Jamie smiled now, in recollection. Still, the best thing about that fete had been meeting Annabelle. He’d been doing well at a darts game when he’d seen her, standing watching, all by herself. She had smiled straight at him, and clapped vigorously when he’d won. A blustery wind had taken Jamie’s baseball cap and deposited it at Annabelle’s feet, and that was that.
    The gates of the Hall were open, and Jamie turned in and walked swiftly up the drive. In spite of the pleasurable anticipation of seeing Annabelle, he had the customary sinking feeling at approaching the stately mansion. God, I hope Mrs. T-J is out, he thought. But she never was, not when he was expected, anyway. What did she think? That he was goin’ to drag her precious granddaughter upstairs to one of the four-posters and have his